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Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine is the toast of Moscow society, a beautiful actress in an infamous theatre troupe.

Her love life is as colourful as the parts she plays. She is the estranged wife of a descendant of Genghis Khan. And her ex-husband has threatened to kill anyone who courts her.

He appears to be making good on his promise.

Fandorin is contacted by a concerned friend -- the widowed wife of Chekhov -- who asks him to investigate an alarming incident involving Eliza. But when he watches Eliza on stage for the first time, he falls desperately in love ... Can he solve the case -- and win over Eliza -- without attracting the attentions of the murderer he is trying to find?

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Real name - Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili (Russian: Grigory Chkhartishvili), born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1956. Since 1958 he lives in Moscow. Writer and translator from Japanease. Author of crime stories set in tsarist Russia. In 1998 he made his debut with novel Azazel (to English readers known as The Winter Queen), where he created Erast Pietrovich Fandorin. B. Akunin refers to Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin and Akuna, home name of Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet.In September of 2000, Akunin was named Russian Writer of the Year and won the "Antibooker" prize in 2000 for his Erast Fandorin novel Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs. Akunin also created crime-solving Orthodox nun, sister Pelagia, and literary genres.His pseudonyms are Анатолий Брусникин and Анна Борисова. In some Dutch editions he is also known as Boris Akoenin.